White-Less Christmas
by chocolatecheesecakes
Summary: "Why Australia?" Mrs Weasley moaned. "First Romania, now Australia!" - Merry Christmas to xSiriuslyInsanex! I hope you enjoy this XD
1. Chapter 1

**MERRY CHRISTMAS TO XSIRIUSLYINSANEX AKA ANNIE!  
**

**I hope you like the min-insight into Wizarding life in Australia, and a you/Charlie pairing. Just a smidgen. After all, I was having to much fun being insane etc. **

**XD**

White-Less Christmas

"Why Australia?" Mrs Weasley moaned, folding up socks and shaking her head. "First Romania, now _Australia_?"

Charlie shrugged. "I like the climate." He said lamely. "And… The girls are fit? It's interesting? I like lobster? My friend got me a surfboard and I can't use it in Britain?"

"It's _Christmas…_" Mrs Weasley said, apparently having not heard a word of Charlie's spiel of excuses. "Why _Christmas? _You should be with us, as a family…"

"Mum, I'm going to Australia." Charlie sighed. "That's it. I'm over age now, and have been for quite some time. Leave me alone. I'll bring you home _actual_ Australian recipes if you want."

Finally, his mother calmed down. But she still gave him a reproachful look as she left his room in The Burrow.

* * *

Australia was warm. No, it was more, it was oppressively hot. But Charlie liked that, because anything was better than cold, rainy Britain. The sun was blazing; there was no trace of snow (was there ever a 'White Christmas' Down Under?) and there also seemed to be no end to the endless tourists. Women pushing pushchairs, men with surfboards…

Charlie couldn't really say 'tourists'. He was English, and as such he was a tourist himself. But he hoped he was blending in.

He checked his sheet, and read the instructions for getting to the Australian Ministry, where the Dragon Experts would allegedly be meeting him on this occasion. They weren't verbatim, (in fact no where near that) so he had to stare at the messy writing to decipher it.

Hmm. Maybe he should have taken up handwriting lessons at Hogwarts.

_Turn left at the_\- was that 'the lobster'?

_Turn left at the lobster, and carry on past the-_

Charlie shook his head to himself, glancing up and feeling a pang of pride when he saw quite a few hot Australian girls checking him out. Still, his hastily written instructions made no sense. Carry on past the Marshmallow? He had probably been a bit drunk while writing this.

Come to think of it, maybe the punch at the work's party had been spiked after all. He woke up in bed next to his flatmate André anyway. Probably LSD. It always was LSD…

_Carry on past the monument. _Charlie exhaled, finally having shaken some sense into himself. _Turn left at the Lobster _(that was probably a restaurant)_, carry on past the monument and head for the… The diving school?  
_

There was no mistaking those words.

Charlie might have been ace at Quidditch, back in the day, but he didn't deal well with water. He had hyperventilated when Fred and George had poured a bucket of water over his head once, for heaven's sake! How was he going to deal with…

He gulped. _Diving school_.

* * *

"Ah, you must be Mr Weasley!" Was the next voice Charlie heard, as he lay, exhausted and dripping on the floor, just past the… The airlock.

What type of Ministry had its entrance _underwater? _

"Sorry about that." The voice continued. It had a definite twang, and was female, but Charlie couldn't see the person that had to come with it. "You could have taken the land route, that's a lot easier."

"There's a land route?" Charlie gasped, grabbing a table to aid with standing up, and coughing up quite a bit of water. A quick excavation of his hair found a long strand of green seaweed, and he was drenched. From head to toe.

"Ooh, English." The voice grinned. "English guys are cute."

"Yeah…" Charlie said, a little curiously. "Um… Who are you? I can't even see you. Are you like the system or… Or something?"

"Nah." The voice sighed. "I'll be down in a second. Dry clothes are on the left, and in the meantime…"

The voice cut off, and in its place was a very distinctive guitar riff. Charlie raised his eyebrows, before deciding not to comment. Guns N Roses. He didn't know which song, but… Good music. Better than the stuff his mother listened to anyway.

He was halfway through replacing his shirt with a new, dry, khaki one, when the revolving door behind his began to move.

"Sorry about that." The same voice said, and Charlie whirled around, pulling his shirt down quickly. "It's fun, you know. Making tourists come through the airlock."

"Mystery girl voice." Charlie exhaled, walking forward and holding out his hand. "I'm Charlie."

"Annie." The girl grinned. "Like the music? It's all I've been listening to all day."

Charlie managed to stop himself grinning. "Really?" He asked, smirking in a way that he hoped was flirtatious. "Well. I have literally all the Guns N Roses records at my hotel room… If you'd like to go for dinner first, that is?"

Annie's blue eyes widened, and her lips parted slightly. "Oh." She said, after a few moments. "Um… Yeah, okay, that'd be nice."

"I'll pick you up at seven." Charlie winked, before looking around. "Now. Where's this Dragon Expert I've been promised."

No one appeared from the wings. And then, just as Charlie was getting just a little worried, Annie smirked.

"Well. That'd be me, wouldn't it?"


	2. Chapter 2

**I made this a two-shot. Yup. I needed to write more (Red and Green was brilliant and beautiful ASDJKFL!) and I could write more so Annie, here you go.**

**Unrelated, but my school form tutor knows I write Fanfiction now. I said about my 68 chapter story, and then went on a bit about JohnLock.**

**HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT SHIPPING IS!**

**Ahem. Merry Christmas Annie. Again.**

White-Less Christmas

Charlie wasn't comfortable sitting on a wall (well, perching), dressed up in pretty formal clothes. He kept checking his watch every three seconds, even though he knew that doing so wouldn't make Annie arrive any faster.

_"Over here, we have a Welsh Green." Annie said, showing Charlie a huge, green dragon that would have intimidated a dragon tamer of less calibre than he. "Oh, look out, she's pretty damn pregnant."_

_ Charlie immediately walked backwards. Dragons had a nasty habit of becoming more vicious around the time that they were having kids, and Christmas, funnily enough. _

_ When he voiced this last wonderment to Annie, she looked at him funny and pulled a face. "Er… Are you okay?" She asked, in a voice that was admirably void of sarcasm. "Dragons have never been tetchy around Christmas that I know of."_

_ "I think the ones in Romania ate a batch of dodgy mice pies." Charlie shrugged, although he was, in a word, thrown. "Never been the same since. My mate André once tried to feed a Hungarian Horntail a turkey, that might be the cause."_

_ "Oh, I know this one!" Annie cut in suddenly, with a grin. "You English eat turkey at Christmas, don't you? Because it's so cold over there at Christmas-time. We just have barbeques. What's it like, having a cold Christmas-time?"_

_ "Um." Was all Charlie could really say. "I'm used to it, I guess."_

_ Annie grinned again, and nodded, gesturing to one of her colleagues as she began to move Charlie on to the next dragon. "Ooh, I doubt you've seen one of these before Mr Weasley-"_

_ "Charlie." Charlie corrected, with a charming – he wished – smile. Annie giggled slightly, but nodded, and turned the key in one of the gates._

_ The gates were huge, wrought iron structures, floor to ceiling in length, and positioned in a large, clean starch white room. There were noticeably little to no scorch marks around the huge room, but as there was at least thirty people standing to one side with buckets of water, Charlie was somehow not that surprised. _

_ "You know, most of the Ministry is underwater." Annie explained, pulling a cord for one of the blinds on the windows. Charlie swallowed, and then stepped backwards when she pulled to cord, revealing a perfect view of the water outside the window, complete with a swarm (was it a swarm?) of fish. "Including this room. We have one or two levels above sea level, it's just easier due to being on the coast."_

_ Charlie nodded, peeling his eyes away from the fish. "What's the land route then?" He asked, looking around hopefully for a set of stairs marked 'Land Route' or something similar. "I mean to this Ministry."_

_ Annie shook her head. "No, visitors mainly use the diving school." She began to explain, pulling the cord again. "Especially visitors to this area-"_

_ "Watch out!" Charlie grabbed her hand and yanked Annie down, just as a jet of flame came soaring out of the Welsh Green's cage and missed their heads by inches. _

_ "Thanks." Annie said, with a smile, as she nodded at a few of the other workers, who were working on subduing the Dragon. She dusted down her jeans with her free hand, and then paused._

_ "Oh, yeah." Charlie corrected quickly, dropping her hand and managing to smirk just in enough time to look sexy. _

_ "Don't worry about it." Annie smirked too, and Charlie let out a low whistle as he watched her blue eyes light up. "Remember, you're picking me up at seven."_

Charlie nodded to himself, checking his watch one more time for luck before leaning backwards on his hands and looking up at the clear night sky, which still carried a hint of purple from the magnificent sunset that had occurred not an hour ago.

He had been more than correct when he had said that the birds were fit in Australia. And being able to score one in… What? An hour, tops? Boosted his ego considerably.

"Hey."

Charlie sat up remarkably fast, and smiled when he saw (_finally) _Annie standing there. "Hey." He said back, not realising how dumbstruck he sounded. "You look beautiful."

Annie smiled; making her eyes light up again, and then took the arm that Charlie was offering, laughing when he tripped up on a slightly loose stone.

"So," Charlie finally said, after a few moments of silence. "Barbeques then."


End file.
